Do you ever feel like you’re overwhelmed with advice on how to improve your life, yet all you crave is a moment of peace? Do you wonder if there’s a simple way to incorporate more calm into your life without all the extra stress? If so, this episode is for you! I dive into a topic that might surprise you—walking—and how it can not only benefit your physical health but also bring peace into your day-to-day life, guilt-free.
In this episode, I share my personal journey with walking and how my mindset about it shifted over time. From struggling with the guilt of not walking enough to embracing the beauty of walking for pleasure and connection, I reveal how this simple activity has changed my approach to both health and life. I also discuss the amazing health benefits backed by science and how walking can be a tool for emotional and mental well-being.
If you are ready to lose weight and change the way you think about hunger, sign up for the lifetime access membership for Love Yourself Thin! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- How walking can help you calm your mind and activate your parasympathetic nervous system.
- The surprising benefits of walking backed by studies, including how it can reduce cravings and boost your immune system.
- Why you don’t need to walk or exercise to lose weight, but how doing it guilt-free can enhance your overall happiness and well-being.
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- If you are ready to lose physical weight and change the way you think, sign up for The Pieceful Heart Membership! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
165. Walking and How to Enjoy to Start Guilt Free
Do you feel like you can’t handle one more piece of advice and you just want to have some peace in life? Well, this episode is for you because not only are we going to be talking about how to get peace. But it’s going to be a lot simpler than you think, and it doesn’t take as much effort as you imagine. If I have you intrigued?
I hope so. My name is Dara Tomasson and this is episode 1 65 from The Quilters Coach podcast. The topic today is walking and how to enjoy it. Guilt free. Let’s talk about walking. I actually have so much to say about this, and I’m really, really interested to hear your feedback. However, before I go into all of the thoughts that I have about walking and how to start doing it, guilt free and all of that goodness, I need to share this with one of the members in my membership. It’s ironic that I’m talking about walking. So this member she has had, she’s really struggled with her leg for a long time
She’s been on crutches and not been able to put any weight on it. 18 weeks. It’s been a really long time. One of the things that she said about this whole experience was. That she found strength that she didn’t know she had. And she was able to, because of the tools she’s able to reframe her thinking. She was able to get help. She gave herself a lot of permission for being a human. She also approved that you can lose weight without having to move. Which is awesome because of what I say all the time. So that brings me into our topic today. Dallin H Oaks said our weaknesses can become our strengths and our strengths can become our weaknesses. I definitely have seen throughout the years of weight loss for myself and a trend for my members. When we were younger. We could lose weight really easily. Like relatively speaking. I remember my mom made me a dress once for this dance and it was pretty tight and she’s like, oh, just eat a salad and walk a little bit this week.
And you’ll be fine. Was like 19 or something. That was easy. I remember in high school, same thing. I would be able to drop, you know, five pounds, no problem in a week. And part of it is. Scientifically I can explain why. We have what’s called the allosteric and that’s just basically wear and tear.
So just like with a car. If you’re running the engine, you get oils and you’ve got all these different lubricants in the engine. And then you drive outside and it’s pollen and there’s leaves and there’s dust and there’s dirt and maybe the road just got refinished. There’s some oil residue or something. So the car we’ll collect all this dust and different oils and lubricants and everything. That’s why we need to get an oil change.
Once you get the oil change, then your car is good to go and it will run a lot smoother. It’s the same thing with our body. If we have a buildup of a lot of sugar and flour, and we’re not using all that energy. In our blood, we have lots of refined flour and sugar.
Then if that’s super loaded, the body says, well, we’re kind of maxed out here. We’ve got to turn this. Extra energy into stored fat. When we have a lot of that stored fat. Our bodies are having a harder and harder time to keep up and we just have more and more fat that we are carrying around. Which of course puts more pressure on our knees and our hips and our internal organs as well.
We’ve got the Visceral fat and the subcutaneous fat. The visceral fat is a lot more dangerous because it’s putting a lot of pressure on our internal organs. As we get older, we continue. We can have more of that difficulty, especially if we’re not really looking at it. You know, all of our overconsumption of food. We talk about walking. Now with walking. It’s interesting. I have some surprising studies that I wanted to share. So one is from cancer research in the UK. They just give us so many good reasons. So reduce stress, maintain healthy weight, and discover new places. Because you can see things while you walk by foot that you can’t see in a car. It saves you money because you’re saving money on gas. And it also, you don’t have to go to these gyms and you can just walk. Walk and talk so you can get Connection with other people.
It lowers your blood pressure. It increases your energy levels. And because you get that boost of energy, that dopamine, and it improves your sleep. It saves the planet for sure, because you’re not having as many emissions in the ozone. It does help beat cancer. Then there’s a study here by Harvard. I love how I have to come up with. Catchy titles. Five surprising benefits of blocking. They are the first one is counteracts the counteract the effects of weight, promoting genes. Harvard researchers looked at 32 obesity production promoting genes in over 12,000 people. To determine how much these genes actually contribute to body weight among the study participants who walked for sleep for about an hour a day. The effects of those deans were cut in half. Gene level. It’s amazing. It helps tame a sweet tooth. So there was another study. The University of Exeter, found that a 15 minute walk can curb cravings for chocolate and can reduce the amount of chocolate you eat and stressful situations. Reduces the risk of breast cancer. So there’s an American cancer society. Zeroed in on walking. Found that women who walked seven or more hours a week had a 14% lower risk. Breast cancer than those who walked three hours.
Studies have found that walking reduces arthritis related pain. Walking five to six miles a week can even prevent arthritis from forming in the first place. That’s amazing. Then it also boosts your immune function. Walking can help protect you during cold and flu season. There was a study of over a thousand men and women that found that those who walked at least 20 minutes a day, at least five days a week had a 43%. Fewer sick days than those. It’s exercise once a week or less.
So this is the thing. If you look at the worksheet, you’re going to see here. We could just go on and on about all the benefits of walking. We could go on and on about the benefits of all sorts of things. But just like one of my clients said, we don’t have a knowledge problem. We have a thinking problem. This episode, my goal for you is just to talk a little bit about walking. Then just share some of the things that have happened for me in my journey.
My main goal. For this episode. Is just to help you make a decision.
Just make a decision. And I actually listened to Brooke Castillo, where I went to life coach school, she did a podcast episode. On March 21st. It. Really struck a chord with me. Now I’ve been a weight loss coach. I’ve lost 50 pounds and kept it off without exercise. Since 2019. And two years ago, 2022. I did the month of August, I did a let’s walk everyday challenge because somebody else, another coat that I liked. She did that.
And I enjoyed watching her walk and talk. And I said, oh, I can do that. It was a disaster. It was a disaster ladies. I pushed against it. I was rebellious against it. It was shocking to me how I reacted.
Most of the walks I did, I was wearing my Birkenstocks. I never really wore a sports bra. Quite often the walks were late at night. In fact, one time I went on a walk and it got all of a sudden, it was just really dark. There was this sketchy car. I called my husband and I was like, can you come and pick me up? Like normally I’m not a scaredy pants. But we live out in nature.
There’s not many people around. And it was dark and he had a truck and it just made me. I just listened to my instincts and it was like, no, you need to call like this guys. This is the guy who really slowed down when I walked by. Like it wasn’t good. I was kind of rebelling and sometimes my walk was literally just around my yard it was like 10 30 at night. I did it because I said I went to my people, but I didn’t get the benefit of it because I wanted to talk about that because, you know, clearly. You don’t have to walk. Clearly you can lose weight and not exercise at all. I’ve proven it and I’ve shown it to my members. This is the thing that happened to me in March when I listened to Brooks. Podcast about walking.
She started just talking. How much she really enjoyed walking by herself. Then she talked about how much she enjoyed going for walks with people. She talked about how much she enjoyed just going for walks sometimes with a podcast.
When she talked about that, I thought.
I think I would enjoy that too. I love being in nature. I live in nature. I don’t know if you can see, but I’m just surrounded by trees. But the way that she talked about it just got my mind thinking of it in a totally different way. When I heard her saying it was. Taking yourself out. You’re regular everyday and you’re putting yourself into a beautiful setting. You’re just letting your body move. You can walk and you can have that time to yourself. I craved it and I didn’t realize how much I created it. I think in may. Yeah, I started walking. In may. And I started waking up kind of early. I really do it before work. Started to enjoy it.
Even when I went to Chicago I was super tired and I was kind of frustrated. It had some discouragement. I just went for a walk. In our body it is called the Vagus nerve. Now the vagus nerve is kind of like the big channel. Of all the other nerves go off of it. One of them is called the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system. Is the part of our nervous system that is constantly looking for danger. It’s part of our fight flight freeze and fond response. And so for people who are super stressed and people who don’t have a lot of calm and relaxation, a sympathetic nervous system is like always going. Then attached to the vagus nerve is what’s called the parasympathetic nervous system.
I like to think of it as like a parachute. It kind of opens up, slows down and lets us. I have that perspective. The parasympathetic nervous system is related to our higher brain and more executive thinking. One of the things that happens when you walk. It helps you to calm down. To really get more into that parasympathetic nervous system.
It’s really great. Internal reward system. We get a dopamine hit. We get those good hormones going on in our body. Because our body is saying, oh, this feels really good. I just like walking. I move my body. My heart is beating, but I’m not afraid. Like there’s, I’m not running away from someone I’m not. Having to always be looking for danger.
Like this feels really good. That’s the body’s reward system.
In the past, I used it as a weapon against me. I was like, oh man, I have to lose this, you know, the next five pounds, or I’m going to this wedding or I’m doing this thing.
So the running shoes and the workout gear was kind of like a weapon, right?
Like it was like punishment. I had a really negative connotation to it. But what’s the other part of this, the idea of going for a walk. And going into nature and moving your body in a way that just feels good. Is that also rewarding? Our hormones. So our hormones are like little tiny cars that drive around and they’re constantly telling the body what’s going on. , if our cortisol is really up there, the hormones are going crazy, they’re saying, okay, we’ve got to produce some more insulin. We got to get some energy into this woman. She’s having a really big problem.
And we need to get more energy so that she can solve it. When we exercise from a place of love and a place of connection and a place of beauty.
Then those hormones, it’s like, they’re getting a really good charge. What I want to end off with saying is that the most important part of your permanent change? Is you. Are the one who needs to make the changes and they have to be unique to you.
We’re all different. We all had different parents. We all had different upbringings. You know, I grew up in Canada. We have different expectations of being like a stereotypical Canadian versus being an American. My son is going off to Africa for two years. It’s going to be a really big culture shock. The only way that we can truly make our own change is by understanding who we are and understanding what has motivated us in the past. The kinds of conversations we have with ourselves. The kind of chatter in our head, all of that. We have to really be aware of that in order for us to change in order for us to really look at. What’s. What is most important for us and what do we need to do for us? We can go and talk to other people and get information from them, but ultimately the buck stops here.
Right. We have to make our own decisions. So I wanted to get on and just share. There’s thousands of studies and there’s tons of recommendations on the importance of walking. That’s a Google thing, right? You can just Google that. But where the trouble is, is how do we create benefits? How do we create hadrons that are going to benefit us? Now. Once the kids go back to school.
One son who has been driving my other son to school. And he’s going to be leaving. November. So I’m going to have to do all that. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to have that freedom to go walk every morning. First thing. I don’t know if I’m going to want to disrupt my Workday to go for a walk and then it gets dark. Sometimes like four o’clock. Am I going to want to go for a walk at four o’clock with a headlamp?
Is that my walk’s going to look a little different, maybe I will go at lunchtime. Maybe I just don’t go as far. I’m not going to stress out about it because this is the other part that I can see you. Right now in my life, I have been enjoying waking up at six 30, which is crazy. I wake up at six 30 and go for a six kilometre walk. Sometimes six days a week. Honestly, that’s fun. I don’t know if I’m going to keep doing that in September. Doesn’t mean I have to keep doing it.
There’s lots of things. I like it. I’m really curious about your reaction to this podcast. And I love the idea of thinking, you know, I’m here. Making this podcast on what’s today, a Thursday night. Today was kind of a wild day. It didn’t quite get as much done with summertime when I’m recording this. But the boys are off to basketball and I’m just going to do these podcasts while they’re gone.
Having a life coach or having life coaching tools. Means that you can now safely. Go into your own brain. Start creating your own. Happy and healthy patterns. What you did in the past.
Is it both good and bad? You don’t have to know everything in the future. You really don’t. Do I know that I’m going to walk as much? My husband would actually look up at headlights the other day.
He’s like, oh, we can get you this headlamp. And I was like, yeah, we could or not. So interested in your feedback from this episode. Oh, that’s what I was going to say. I’m here. Having the conversation with you. It’s a Thursday night for me, August 1st, I’m doing this and I know it’s coming out. September. Past Dara is taking care of the future and current Dara is taking care of future Dara because I want to, when I go on vacation, guess I’ve already gone on vacation.
Once you get this but I want my, for the whole time I’m on vacation. I don’t want to have to worry about anything. At work. So my August 1st Dara is taking care of September , Dara. Because I want to enjoy August 14th to 28. Then when we come back from vacation, I want to be able to be fully present with my kids. Getting them ready for school. And sending my son. Back to school.
This is what happens when you learn like coaching tools. You really start to build an amazing relationship with yourself. And I love helping people do that. So. You’re going to see some changes.
So I’m excited for you to be a part of this. All right. Take care everyone. Bye.
If you aren’t loving your current life and hear yourself saying things like, I should be happier. I should be getting more done or question how productive and fulfilled you are. This podcast is for you. I’m Dara Thomas. I’m a professional quilter turned life coach for quilters, where I show you how to overcome obstacles like perfectionism, people pleasing, overeating, overcomplicating life so that you can really start to enjoy your life.
By learning and using tools for your brain to help you transform your everyday living. Are you ready to make these changes? I’m ready to help. Let’s start your transformation one UFO at a time.
